I am trying to get in the habit of making a coffee table for a year (I have 2007,2008 done but need to go back and do 2006, 2005, 2004) as well as important ones (our wedding, a trip to Italy etc) and I print photos to put in frames (I rotate them).
Where do you get your photo books printed? That's such a good idea. I've been thinking I need to get some of our pictures printed and put in photo albums, but I like the idea of photo books so much better!
Thank you all so much! I'm feeling woefully inadequate and unorganized right now , but there's a lot of great info here and so much to think about.
I'm actually suprised that there's so little actual printing of pictures. I do want to make sure to print some because I want them to be "public" (at least in my house) and shared, not just sitting on my computer.
The other surprising take-away for me is that so many people have external hard drives. I honestly never thought about that, but just discussed getting one with DH because of this thread. I do all my work on a home computer and really should have a better back-up system in place (yes, I've known this for years, but I guess I didn't realize how easy and inexpensive it's become to do it). So I got some bonus info I didn't expect too!
I do the same as most others. I usually take pictures off the camera memory at least a few times per week. I organize my pictures by year. So we have a 2004, 2005, etc pictures. I have seperate folders for BIG events (sis's wedding, safari, etc) Within the year folders I label by month and we figured out we need to label with numbers 01_2009, 02_2009 so they appear in order (I had Jan 2009, Feb 2009 before and it would take too long to find the correct month, I like them in order). Within the months I have folders for special events (Easter, beach, School Xmas party, Home Chirstmas, etc) "general"/everyday pictures just go into the main monthly folder.
It makes it really easy to find what I need. I know my inlaws visited March 2009, and I can go right to that folder.
We keep all our pictures on an external harddrive, which I unplug nightly. We also have all our pictures on CDs (in the states). We did have one computer die on us (due to a power outage/surge) so I have to say, it is really important to backup your pictures.
I make photo albums and I LOVE picaboo. But it is REALLY expensive. I have made free books on Shutterfly and I like them. I also used KodakGallery I love the quality. I think picaboo is the best, as I love using my pictures as backgrounds. I have also used blurb, for a BIG book (200 pages) and it is awesome! Though the actual binding is not the best.
I have ordered photo books from Snapfish and I am VERY happy with the quality and price. Because we liked the ones we made last year so much we are going to print one each year for each grandma and one for us. The picture quality is great and the actual book binding/quality is fantastic. Granted, I've never gotten a photo book from anyone else but from looking around at prices I think we'll stick with snapfish. Right now everything is 20% off with code HOLIDAY09 and they are having daily specials until christmas.
I am also going to order 3 calendars through snapfish. Their prints are only $.09 each, and if you are signed up for e-mails from them you get offers for free prints all the time. The prints you get are the same as you'd get from anywhere else, only delivered to your mailbox
Good judgement comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgement. -From a bumper sticker I saw once
Can anyone tell me what photo book companies print on regular or stock type paper? I've seen the photobooks at CVS where the pages are printed on large sheets of photo type paper and I'm not really liking those.
This is a timely thread though. We just turned on our desktop after about 8 months of not using it and considering it's the only place we have our lifetime vacation pictures, I've got to get working on getting those to some other media type. Now if they all weren't in RAW taking up gazillion megs it would make my life easier (grrr, DH!).
She'd be his wife and make him her husband 5/03Ds1 12/22/09...Ds2 8/31/12
What I meant is, they are a lot more likely to be damaged and/or become ruined w/o your knowledge until it is too late
That is a valid point. And could, unfortunately, apply to any external storage device. I think I read on CC once that someone's DC pulled their external HD off their desk and it stopped working. So I guess the moral would be, have multiple backup options just in case.
Just a tip/recommendation about photo printing. At Wal-Mart, they have a self-serve Kodak photo printing kiosk. You put your card or USB drive in and select pics to print or projects to make. Anyway, the quality is phenomenal. The colors are so vivid and crisp. I printed the same photos from that kiosk and from Snapfish to compare and the Snapfish ones were pale and dull in comparison.
Where do you get your photo books printed? That's such a good idea. I've been thinking I need to get some of our pictures printed and put in photo albums, but I like the idea of photo books so much better!
Here's a thread on photo book recommendations that might be helpful:
Just a tip/recommendation about photo printing. At Wal-Mart, they have a self-serve Kodak photo printing kiosk. You put your card or USB drive in and select pics to print or projects to make. Anyway, the quality is phenomenal. The colors are so vivid and crisp. I printed the same photos from that kiosk and from Snapfish to compare and the Snapfish ones were pale and dull in comparison.
Huh, I guess maybe it depends on which wal-mart or kiosk because I printed out some photos from our wal-mart and was not happy at all with how they turned out. They reminded me of ones printed on a home photo printer. The snapfish ones I've ordered look like regular film prints, perfectly clear and sharp. I also much prefer matte finish, not glossy, and the self serve kiosk I used didn't have that option. Maybe some stores have better equipment than others. It's probably best to try a few options and see what works best. Nice thing is, prints are cheap so you're not out much trying multiple options.
Good judgement comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgement. -From a bumper sticker I saw once
All photos come off of the memory card and onto the computer within a few days. Anything not worth printing gets deleted immediately. They are organized on the computer by month and year. I have an external hard drive that backs up my computer 1-2 times per week. I also upload my photos to Shutterfly once per month. If something happens to the computer and hard drive, I have an online source. You can actually buy photo CDs/DVDs from Shutterfly. I organize the photos into books to get printed by Shutterfly about once every 6 months. My kids each have a book for each year of their lives. I'll also do shorter books if we take a special family vacation that I'd like to have the photos for.
TracyDP - The store I was at had 2 kiosks - one was specifically Kodak and the other was ?? theirs I guess. The Kodak was the one I had good luck with. It is hard to know what will be best without trying because it's hard to know the age/maintenance/etc. of any of those machines. I can't remember if it had matte as an option but it did have other projects you could do with your photos - like collages and borders and such.
Originally Posted by lil_geek
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, but there's a lot of great info here and so much to think about.
